CNN "State of the Union with Jake Tapper" - Transcript: Interview with Governor Mike DeWine

Interview

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[10:15:53]

TAPPER: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION. I'm Jake Tapper.

Tuesday's election may hinge on the president's handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

And with every day that passes, infection rates are spiking in key swing states, such as Ohio, which is facing record high cases and hospitalizations.

Joining me now, Ohio Republican Governor Mike DeWine.

Governor DeWine, thanks for joining us.

I want to talk about coronavirus in a second, but, first, obviously the election. Ohio is a bellwether state. No Republican has ever won the White House without Ohio. The last Democrat to win despite losing Ohio was John F. Kennedy.

Unlike some states, Ohio begins its -- processing its early vote before Election Day. Given that, do you think we will know who won your state on election night?

DEWINE: Well, I think so. We count our early votes right at 7:30. So, you're going -- the first votes you're going to get are all the early votes. They're going to come in probably before 8:00. And you're going to see some big numbers there. And I think that will give us some indication of how Ohio is going.

So, we don't have to -- we don't have to wait and process those. They're -- they're -- they will be ready to go at 7:30 and run through the computers.

TAPPER: Right. And that might be a -- what we call a blue mirage. Since so many Democrats are voting disproportionately early, we might see big vote totals for...

DEWINE: Sure, but...

TAPPER: ... Biden early on. And then -- and then Trump would catch up as vote -- voting-that-day numbers come in, right?

DEWINE: Right.

Yes, I -- look, I think the president wins Ohio. I think it's going to be a close vote. I think he wins by a couple points probably.

TAPPER: Trump won Ohio by eight points in 2016. Polls right now show a neck-and-neck race. You're predicting two points.

Is the fact that this race is even close in Ohio something of a red flag for President Trump?

DEWINE: Well, look, we're in the midst of a pandemic, and this is a tough, tough time. And so it's going to be closer.

It's not going to be a blowout like it was in Ohio. But the president still is going to do exceedingly well in what has historically been a Democrat area. That's the Ohio Valley, Eastern Ohio. All the reports from over there are that he's going to do exceedingly well there. All the other rural counties, he's going to do exceedingly well.

And the ground game, the best that I could see it on both sides, I think the president's ground game has been a lot better than the Biden ground game, frankly.

TAPPER: Ohio accepts absentee ballots postmarked before Election Day through November 13.

"The New York Times" reports that Trump advisers say that their best hope is to win Ohio, keep the race close in Florida, and then try to dispute the validity of uncounted mail-in ballots.

That doesn't seem like a strategy to win. It seems like an effort to undermine election results.

I assume that you believe that any legally cast ballot should be counted, period?

DEWINE: Look, Jake, all I can tell you is about Ohio.

We have 10 days. You postmark that on Monday, you have -- it's got 10 days to get there. And we count all those votes in that 10-day period of time. So, we have got a very open voting. It's a system that has worked. We started voting in Ohio 28 days or so out from the election.

People are voting this weekend. And it's -- we have great confidence in our system in Ohio.

TAPPER: You're releasing a letter to your fellow citizens of Ohio today talking about the need to come together and also talking about coronavirus. You say coronavirus is -- quote -- "raging" throughout the state.

Ohio is clearly in the throes of increased hospitalizations, daily cases. There were a record 3,800 new cases just on Friday, hospitalizations at a record level; 78 percent of Ohio residents are living in a county with very high exposure and spread.

[10:20:00]

What went wrong? What's going wrong in Ohio when it comes to the coronavirus pandemic?

DEWINE: Well, it's the same thing that's going -- that is happening, going wrong throughout the Midwest. You're seeing it in Europe. They're probably a couple weeks ahead of us at Europe.

It's what some of the experts had predicted. And about 3.5 weeks ago, it just turned on a dime on us in Ohio. We were going well. We had positivity down to 2.5 percent. Now positivity is around 7 percent.

And so my message to Ohioans in that letter I'm sending out in just a few minutes and the video is, look, I know we're in the -- right coming down in this election, very contentious election. But we have a common enemy.

And when we wake up on Wednesday, whoever wins this race, we have got to come together. This virus doesn't care whether we vote for Joe Biden or whether we vote for Donald Trump. It's coming after us. And we need to push aside these differences. We have a lot more in common.

And one of the things -- with each other. One of the things Ohioans and Americans have in common is, we have got to defeat this virus. We have got the -- a vaccine will be coming. I think, frankly, the Trump administration has done a very good job getting that -- moving early on, putting the cash and the money into that.

But it's going to come. And the best guess that I can see or estimate is that -- the latter part of this year, early next year. Then it's going to be incumbent upon us, all of us, to tell people it's safe, and so that people can make that choice to take -- take that vaccine.

But Wednesday, we have got to come together as a country. We have done it in the past. We have rallied before. This is like a war. We always come together. We put our differences aside, our political squabbling. This campaign has had a high degree of rhetoric. I guess most campaigns do, particularly in the last weekend.

And you have each side thinking the world will come to an end if the other side wins. And I understand that. I'm a partisan. I'm for the president.

But, on Wednesday, we have got to come together as a country, because we have got to go fight this enemy, and we have got to defeat this enemy.

TAPPER: One of the top generals in this war, as you describe it, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious diseases expert, told "The Washington Post" that the U.S. faces -- quote -- "a whole lot of hurt" ahead.

He praised Biden's campaign for taking the virus -- quote -- "seriously from a public health perspective." He noted that President Trump is focused on reopening the economy.

And the White House then started attacking Fauci for his remarks, accusing him of playing politics.

But is he wrong about where the president's focus is?

DEWINE: Look, I think the president -- I have seen the president and the vice president behind the scenes with our meeting every week with all the governors do a great job.

But I think, Jake, the rhetoric is hot right now. On Wednesday, we have got to stop looking back, and we have got to look forward and say, how do we defeat this enemy?

You asked me what we're seeing in Ohio, what's going wrong. As we analyze it, what we see in Ohio is that it is not in our schools. Our schools, our teachers are -- everyone's doing a great, great job. We have a mask requirement for K-12 in schools. We're not seeing much spread directly in schools at all. We're not seeing a whole lot in business.

Jake, where we're seeing it is people in their own private lives, weddings, showers, funerals, watching football games. People are letting their guard down. They're not wearing a mask.

And that's our message, my message to the people of Ohio. We got to start doing this more. And there is good news. We now know how important mask are.

TAPPER: Yes.

DEWINE: We know we can knock this thing down.

And, if we do that and come together, this winter will not be as bad as many people are predicting it. And I'm optimistic that Ohioans are starting to see that this thing is really, really spreading in Ohio.

TAPPER: Yes. The president seems to prefer, instead of Fauci, Dr. Scott Atlas, who does not have expertise in infectious diseases. And when it comes to this White House vs. Fauci thing that just happened, Scott Atlas went on Twitter and started mocking Dr. Fauci.

And he also just recently gave an interview to R.T., which is a Russian propaganda network.

Does it bother you, the role that Scott Atlas is playing in this pandemic at the White House, given the fact that he is mocking the idea of masks, which is the opposite message that you're giving?

DEWINE: You know, my contact with the White House has been Dr. Birx, Dr. Fauci. They have been aligned very, very closely.

The message has been, we have got to take this seriously, we have got to wear masks. They have given very good guidance. And I have been following -- following those two, as well as a lot of other infectious disease experts and people who we can -- we can talk to.

[10:25:00]

So, I think the science is pretty clear what we have to do. And we know -- frankly, Jake, we know a lot more today than we do -- did in March and April.

Today, we know how powerful these masks are. And, again, I will use the example of Ohio schools. We have had some spread, but when you drill down to it, it's usually not directly in a classroom with kids sitting next to each other, because our kids in Ohio are all wearing masks, and our teachers and our administrators are doing a bang-up job.

And so I think, to me, that is one more example of where these masks are doing such a great job. And if we can get people to do that in their private lives...

TAPPER: Yes.

DEWINE: ... when they're watching the Browns today or the Bengals today, and they're gathering together, keep a little distance and wear a mask, and enjoy the game, and root for our two Ohio teams.

TAPPER: All right, thank you so much. Appreciate your time.

Best of luck on Election Day. Best of luck when it comes to the coronavirus pandemic in Ohio.

DEWINE: Thanks, Jake.

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